The Need

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, but current treatments can sometimes lead to complications. For example, radical prostatectomy is widely used for men in the early stages of prostate cancer, but long-term data shows that 30-40% of these patients experience biochemical failure, making them require salvage radiation therapy. It is also quite difficult to predict who will have these problems and when. Therefore, a method to predict the occurrences of these problems are necessary to improve patient outcomes.

The Technology

Researchers at The Ohio State University, led by Arnab Chakravarti, have developed a prediction method for patients with problems before and after prostate cancer treatment. This was accomplished with the NanoString human v2 array, which contains 800 miRNA probes. By using the NanoString, a total of 100 nanograms of RNA was obtained from each patient. The RNA was then filtered out so that outliers were not affecting the final data. From this, two specific miRNAs were isolated that, depending on the specific biomarkers on them, gave information about the prostate cancer of the patient.

Commercial Applications

• Hospitals
• Medical Research Groups
• Post cancer treatment methodology

Benefits/Advantages

• Minimally invasive detection
• Identifies patients that might be affected by problems post-prostate cancer treatment